It’s called simply “Partners” and listed as 1995 but we didn’t meet until 1998.

So let me explain further, as I used to have these photos on the site and this is what I said about them:

The beautiful black and white photo of Helen Boyd & Rachel Crowl was taken by Mariette Pathy Allen during Fantasia Fair ’04. We were both honored and pleased to pose for Mariette – who is, after all, the official photographer of the transgender community.

A recent meme was making the rounds about how you shouldn’t shame trans women who still have deep voices because estrogen/progresterone can’t undo what testosterone did, and that is entirely true. My friend Luna Rudd – the same person who designed that complicated layer cake of attraction I posted yesterday – then wrote this comprehensive guide.

The following things are irresverisble/unchangeable:

For People who are AMAB:

– Bone Structure (Including Height)

– Facial Hair Growth (Without Electrolysis or Laser Hair Removal)

– Deepness/Tone of Voice (Without training. Basically once vocal chords lossen, you need to train them to retighten.)

– Emotional response (This one is harder to describe, but Estrogen makes emotions a bit more complex and deep. It’s easier to feel like sad, mad, angry, and horny all at the same time.Testosterone makes emotions more straight forward.)

-Sex Drive (Testosterone makes people horny, end of story there.)

Additional Fun Facts:

Although pills, patches, and injections exist for both Testosterone and Estrogen. The most common administration of Testosterone is a weekly shot, and often estrogen is given in pill form. As, a trans woman I’m totally biased, but I always say Estrogen is a flower and Testosterone is a weed. To create an Estrogen rich environment in a Testosterone dominant body, a secondary hormone called an Anti-Androgen needs to be used to block Testosterone’s effect on the body. (A.K.A. Weed killer) To create a Testosterone rich environment in an Estrogen dominant body, you usually just need to add Testosterone and let it go wild.

This has been my TED Talk. I hope you enjoyed yourselves. If you have any other further questions, I will take them now.

I’m not going to glorify the article by linking to it, but there was a miserable piece of TERF bs in the Wall Street Journal yesterday. I attempted to start a point by point rebuttal but I got too frustrated, so here’s what I wound up with instead.

So “safe spaces” aren’t okay for anyone except who this woman decides they’re needed for. Do we ask her permission? Is there a form to fill out? Will only people who deride safe spaces for others by putting the term in scare quotes be allowed to have their own?

Shockingly enough, women and girls also have gender identities. Also, gender identity does not require scare quotes because it’s a thing, has been a thing, & will continue to be a thing. Get over it.

“Biological males” does require scare quotes because this is definitely not a thing. From here on in this term will only apply to men who study biology.

No woman or girl faces risk from a trans person (of any kind) in restrooms, locker rooms, etc.

Trans women and trans girls are women and girls.

Fuck you.

Apparently, biology IS destiny.

Also, fuck you.

Behavior, and not identity, is the issue. Anyone who has been charged with / convicted of violence against women should not have access to women, whether that’s in prisons or homeless shelters or anywhere else. Maybe if this awful woman could get her shit together to, say, demand testing of rape kits and limitations on gun ownership for violent people, instead of demonizing an already well-demonized tiny population of vulnerable people, she might actually manage to reduce the harm women and girls experience.

Writing crap like this – or publishing it – only further distracts people from paying attention to the issues that genuinely expose women and girls to violence: generous gun laws, the difficulty of acquiring a restraining order, good access to mental health care, and understanding of trauma, victim blaming, and the rest.

I am a trans inclusive feminist precisely because I am worried about the violence women and girls experience, which is why it’s so insulting to have someone who knows nothing about either the violence women ACTUALLY face or about trans people write crap like this and publish it.

This is the new trailer for the movie, And Then There Was Eve, that my wife co-stars in. It will do a week of screenings in LA from March 1-7th, and will be available March 12th on all VOD platforms and March 26th on DVD. So there you go. At long last, you’ll all finally be able to see it.

It doesn’t matter if you know it’s coming or not – the news of the death of someone you loved and respected is always hard to hear.

From Dallas Denny:

Alison played a huge role in the forming transgender community. She was a co-founder of Renaissance Education Association, author of a book on voice, and served as Executive Director of the International Foundation for Gender Education. Alison and spouse Dottie we long-time supporters of Fantasia Fair, and both served as Director for multiple years, and both earned the Fair’s highest awards.

There will be a memorial for Alison and Dottie in Provincetown, Massachusetts during Fantasia Fair week, October 20-27, conducted by their daughter Betsy.

I met Alison and her wife Dottie when I was first doing the research for My Husband Betty and in later days when I was doing readings and workshops at various trans conferences mostly in the NE. They were good, weird days, but those two were always a delight. Dottie passed a few years ago.

I started writing this piece back in 2011 after my father died — with the intention of writing some stories about him, but then I started dreaming about other men I’d known – my first boyfriend, a star crossed love, a former boss, etc., and it was very different writing from other stuff I’d done. Here’s a taste — right now, this is how that work starts.?

At the age of 43 I’ve found myself bereft of men. They’re dropping like flies, sneaking out fire escapes, receiving lethal injections. For a while they were everywhere with their opinions and shaving cream and dirty underwear. For a while, they were in my bed and on the couch, at the kitchen table and hanging around my stoop. Like roaches in jeans and t-shirts, they multiplied. And they disappeared like bugs do, too, all of them at once & all of a sudden, and I didn’t notice any one of them was missing until all of them were.

This fall was a rough one for trans people and for Jewish people with the news out of the WH and the Tree of Life shooting, so I just wanted to affirm the beauty that is transness and the beauty that is Jewishness.

My life would be so much darker without these two communities who know how to hold fast in the dark.

Love to all of you. Let Bear’s words inspire you and keep you warm today:

“I hope that someday trans people too have the moment to call such a signal light out of darkness, that we too can celebrate our resistance with friends and family. I would enjoy it very much. But until then, we are going to have continue to resist, and we are going to have to get better and smarter and more cohesive and more compassionate and more resolute and more fabulous in our resistance. That is the light that we can call out of this darkness. We are the light that we can call out of this darkness.”